I haven't written in a little while. I'd like to say that I've been busy, but that doesn't provide enough detail to do justice to what I've been up to. Plus, saying 'I've been busy' is so overused as a reason to not do something that I feel as though it doesn't mean much. The better way to describe what I've been up to the last several weeks is that I've been focusing on making Melbourne feel more like home.
Making a new city feel like home is hard. Making a new city in a new country feel like home is even harder. Yes, Australian culture is pretty similar to American culture. We speak the same language (although sometimes it doesn't feel like it) and like a lot of the same things. However, the cultural adjustment hasn't been the hard part for me. The hard part has been leaving friends, family and the familiar behind to start over completely. I didn't leave Madison because I was ready to leave Madison or because I didn't like the people there. In fact, it was quite the opposite. I really liked living in Madison. I was very happy with my social circle. On weekends (and some weeknights), I was busy with fun things ("funtivities") and socialising. I was close enough to family that I could easily make it back to Minneapolis for a weekend if I wanted to do so. To go from that to knowing nobody and having nothing to do outside of work has been the hard part about making Melbourne feel like home.
When you move abroad, especially to an exciting place like Australia, people seem to assume that you're automatically having an amazing time. "What an adventure!" they often say, or "You're going to have so much fun!" I have also heard. While yes, it has been an adventure and I've had a lot of fun so far, I want to acknowledge that this doesn't describe every moment of every day. If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, it's not obvious that this is the case. Of course I'm going to post the fun and interesting things and leave out the rest. I have had plenty of lonely nights and weekends with nothing to do. Even when I was socialising early after I moved to Melbourne, I sometimes felt lonely because I didn't know the people around me very well. While I realise that I'm not the first person to point this out (in fact, there was a recent This American Life episode that touched on this), I need to say it: it's difficult to make friends as an adult. Up until now, I have been very lucky to be in situations where friends came very easily. I lived in the same school district for all of my school-going years growing up. Making friends in college was easy because I lived in the dorms around a great group of guys. Moving to Madison to work at Epic was easy as well because hundreds of like-minded recent college graduates began working at Epic the same summer as me. Now that I'm in a new city without a built-in network, making friends has been more of a conscious effort than ever before.
About a month ago, I had several weeknights in a row with nothing planned after work. I was dreading it. I don't do well with inactivity. Instead of feeling sorry for myself, I finally decided I would do something about it. I joined a netball team (more about this sport later) that plays on Monday nights, I found a couple of running groups that meet on Tuesday and Wednesday nights to combine marathon training and socialising and my basketball team plays on Thursdays. Adios, inactivity. Hello, things to do and people to meet! With more things to do during the week and getting to know more people to spend time with on the weekends, Melbourne feels like home. I'm even a weekend regular at a coffee shop near my place! The barista greets me knowingly, not at all surprised that I show up drenched in sweat from my Saturday morning run.
I realise that writing about the difficulties of moving to another country (or city) isn't very sexy or fun. It doesn't encourage you to live vicariously through me or want to dream about where you would like to move. However, I've had a conversation about these difficulties with many expats and figured that these thoughts were worth sharing. I also want you to realise that I am not the only person going through this. You likely have a coworker, classmate or neighbour who is new in town. Chances are they are going through something similar to what I've described. I encourage you to make them feel welcome! Get a coffee or a drink with that person or ask them to join you in whatever you have going on that weekend. Trust me when I say that it will mean a lot to them in helping them feel at home in a new city to have something to do other than work, school or whatever they moved to your city to do. I was lucky enough to meet a handful of great people in Melbourne who included me in funtivities and thought of me while making plans, which made me feel very welcome.
To be clear, I am very happy that I moved. I don't want anybody to feel bad for me. As I have dealt with the consequences (good and bad) of the move, I have grown and learned about myself and the world around me. I have no intention of discouraging anyone from moving. In fact, it's the opposite. I think moving, whether it's across the state, the country or the world, is a wonderful thing. There is so much to see and do in the world and moving is a great way to experience that. And if you're thinking about moving but don't know where to go, I can't recommend Melbourne enough. It's a vibrant city full of culture, sport, food and drink that has something for everyone.
Now that we've gotten the 'being real' portion of this blog post, we will resume a rapid-fire version of our regularly-scheduled programming, which attempts to answer one or both of these questions: 'what's Ben up to and what's next?'
Netball: I joined a netball team. Alex, my housemate, mentioned that it's a good social sport and I had seen enough of it to know that my basketball background would be helpful. I would describe it as a hybrid of basketball and ultimate frisbee - there is no contact allowed and no movement while you have the ball like in ultimate, and the goal is to score by 'shooting goals' on backboard-less basketball hoop. I was pretty lost the first game or two that I played, but I feel like I have gotten the hang of it now. It is the first time that I have played in a female-dominated sport, meaning that more females are on the court at a time than males. In other co-ed sports that I've played in the past (soccer, softball, volleyball), the rules allowed for more males on the field of play than females and we would still often struggle to have enough females to field a team. It is also very 'social' and not very competitive, which I thought I would be fine with going into the season. However, I underestimated my competitiveness. While I'm doing everything I can to win and attempting to will my teammates to run faster and jump higher, the referees are coming up to us after games and telling us things like 'you guys have all improved SO much in the last couple of games. I'm proud of all of you!' Anyway, here's a photo of (most of) our team. Notice the letters on our bibs. Those are the positions that we play, which indicate which sections of the court you're allowed to be on during play.
Running: Occasionally it feels as though running has taken over my life. I began training for the Melbourne marathon 13 weeks ago. There are now 5 weeks to go before the race. I maxed out my long training run this morning at 20 miles. I'll do one more 20 mile run in a couple of weeks before dialing back the mileage to rest my legs for the race. My goal is to beat my previous marathon time of 3:29 - I hope to finish around 3:20. Melbourne has beautiful running paths that are very accessible, which has made the training process quite pleasant. The photo at the top of this blog post was taken on a run a couple of weeks ago.
Travel planning: I am very excited about what the future has in store regarding travel. My travel partner (aka lovely girlfriend) Linnea moves to Melbourne on Friday. We already have flights purchased for multiple locations, but once she arrives we have a lot of details to work out for these trips. In October, after the marathon is over, we are going to Adelaide for a long weekend in wine country. In November, my brother is visiting and he and I have a long weekend in Sydney to plan. In early December, Linnea and I jet off to Phuket, Thailand for a week of outdoor activities on gorgeous islands and beaches. In February, my parents spend some time in Melbourne and then Linnea and I are going to meet them in New Zealand for a week of alpine scenery. On top of all that, I'd like to continue exploring Victoria. There is a lot to see in my new state! This weekend, I enjoyed a day trip to Phillip Island. This island is home to the famous Penguin Parade, which attracts visitors from all over the world. The penguins were great, but the highlight was getting to feed kangaroos and wallabies in the wildlife park.
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Ta,
Ben